Page 6

I walked over to her, standing right in front of her. I reached out my arms, and that was my way of telling her to bring it in, so I could give her a hug. She knew that’s what I was asking for because after a few seconds, she stood up from the chair, stepped a little closer, and wrapped her arms around my neck. I wasn’t trying to give her one of those hugs where I placed my hands on her ass and squeezed. The shit she was going through right now, it didn’t cause for all of that. Since that was the case, I just placed my hands on the small of her back, holding her there.

With the hoodie she was wearing, I eventually placed my hands inside, rubbing them up, and down her bare back. We stayed like this for a few minutes. When she pulled away, I kissed her on her forehead, and she sat back down in the chair. I took the spot that was next to her.

“What happened?” I asked, just to have a better understanding of what was going on.

My question caused her to sigh. Then, she picked up her phone that was resting in the seat to the right of her, unlocked it, maneuvered with her fingers for a little bit, and placed the phone in my hands. It was a message thread between her and Nari. I read through the last couple of messages, and it fucked me up how dark this shit was. It made me think about one of my brothers. Them niggas may get on my nerves from time to time, but I know that I would lose my mind if either one of them decided to check out on me. Kendrix was the brother that I typically beefed with the most. Even right now, he found himself not talking to me because of the relationship that I had with Deja. Even with that, I still wanted that nigga here. I didn’t want anything to happen to him.

“Damn. We going to be optimistic that everything is going to be okay. I know that I don’t know her yet, but I got faith that she’ll fight. It’s too much love out here waiting for her. She got that little boy that she has to be here to raise. Everything going to be aight,” I tried to give her words of encouragement, but you could tell she really wasn’t trying to hear any of the things that I was saying to her.

She just nodded her head. After that, I pulled her into me, kissing her a couple of times on her forehead, and cheeks, and then I let her go.

When I let go of her, she was looking at me with a funny look in her eyes. She looked me up and down. Kind of like she was searching for something. There was this look on her face that I couldn’t really read, and then it transitioned to one of anger, with a little bit of annoyance.

“Where were you before you got here?” when she asked that shit to me, I swear her whole vibe changed. Her voice wasn’t soft anymore. She sounded angry and agitated.

“My parents house,” I let her know. She let out a snort and then nodded her head. She did it in a way like she didn’t believe me.

“Hmm,” was all she said.

Right after she said it, her people walked in the room. It was her mom, aunt, and Lyric. They sat on the other side of the room, leaving Deja and I over here on our own side.

“What you mean by that? You think I’m lying to you?” I asked, keeping my voice down so that they wouldn’t hear us.

“At your parents’ house at three in the morning, Wolf? That trick has been played on me before. That lie has been told to me over a million times before. You could have come up with something better,” she snapped on me, her voice cracking in the process.

Before I could say anything else to her, she stood up from her seat and walked out of the room. I sat here shocked for about two minutes. I couldn’t believe this shit. All the shit I had going on at my parents’ house, but I left out for a second, so that I could come sit with Deja, just to make sure that she was okay. She’s carrying on, not believing what I just told her, as if I had a habit of lying to her.

I stood up and walked out of the waiting room area. I looked down the hall, just to see if she could possibly be at the end. After checking both ways, I still hadn’t spotted her. That’s when I walked over to the nurse’s station, where a few of the nurses were sitting. I went for the first one I saw, which was a white girl, with ginger colored hair, and blue eyes. She looked up from the computer that was in front of her and smiled at me.

“Did you see a woman come out here? Chocolate brown hair. She’s wearing a pink sweat suit” I asked.

“Yes. She got on the elevator. I’m not sure where she went though,” she told me.

I nodded my head towards that, thanked her for helping me out, and then walked over to the elevators. I pressed the button, requesting to go down, thinking that she might have stepped outside to get some fresh air or something. I really didn’t have a clue where her ass had skipped off to.

The elevator doors opened, and I stepped inside. I went ahead and took it back down to the lobby. It was a quick ride down. Before I knew it, I was already off.

Walking through the lobby, and eventually out of the double doors, I turned to my right, spotting a sitting area, and sure enough, that’s where she’d walked her ass over to. She was sitting down on one of the benches, looking ahead of her, not aware that I approached her.

She didn’t become aware until I got a little closer. That’s when she looked over at me for a few seconds and turned back to looking ahead of her.

“Break that habit love, and break it quickly,” I was calm in the way that I spoke to her.

“What habit?” she wanted to know, still looking ahead of her.

“The one where you walk your ass off without telling me where you’re going. This the second time you did that, and I had to come looking for you. If we having a discussion right now, turn your head, and look at me. I’m standing on the side of you, not in front of you,” I was still calm as I spoke to her, but I also wasn’t playing around with her ass either. She knew it because she turned her head, so that she could look up at me.

“I go around lying to you?” I asked.

“I don’t know, Wolf. I don’t know what you do,” she looked me in my eyes when she said that.

“Deja, cut the bullshit. You know damn well that ever since we’ve been dealing with each other, I haven’t lied to you about shit. Anything I ever told you I was doing, that’s exactly what it was. Any place I ever told you I was at, that’s exactly where the fuck I was. Why all of a sudden, I tell you something tonight and you don’t believe me? What’s that about?” I asked.

“Because it’s damn near four in the morning, and I don’t believe that you’re coming from your parents’ house. The last time we spoke, you were home, waiting for me to come. You smell like a bitch, Warren! Just go. Leave me the fuck alone. You did exactly what I expected you to do… be a nigga!” her voice cracked when she finished, and she started crying.

I really wasn’t used to seeing this side of Deja. I was going to sum it up to her feelings being all over the place because of what she was dealing with behind her sister. At the same time, I’ve never been the kind of dude to sit back and let someone accuse me of shit that I knew I wasn’t out here doing.

“Ay, when you asked me back in the room where I was coming from, what did I tell you?” I asked her.